What I did today - 2019

[Jessi]

Potted up 8 tomato seedlings. Potentially killed them off as I wasn’t very gentle and they were sulking profusely all afternoon. Fingers crossed they perk up tomorrow.

Finally received my heated propagator so I’ve sown some more tomatoes (sungold), a couple of courgettes and a few butternuts. Looking forward to seeing how quickly they pop up!

[Small pumpkin]

Weeded and refreshed compost in all the mint pots.
Put weed fabric back down on the potato bag area. It turned into a bit of a sail in last weeks windy weather.
Pricked out broccoli and cauliflower
Measured lots of things including sheds, polytunnels, raised beds, trailers.
Sown a few flowers.

[bramble]

Planted out my potatoes today then edged the bed with timber so I could add extra soil.
Potted on my early tomatoes into bigger pots.
Planted up 2 half barrels with potatoes.
Watered my indoor strawberry plants.
Emptied all the last years pots into the potato bed.
Sowed some more herbs.
Tidied the greenhouse.
Still lots to do but happy to have got so much done.
The weather makes all the difference.

[Dynamo]

I potted on my baby plum tomatoes. I'll be giving a lot away lol.

[Dynamo]

I collected another 6 bags of leaves and dug them into my new raised bed along with a bag full of coffee grounds.





I also surrounded the bed with wood chippings.

[1Bee]

Phew. A busy few days. I took some annual leave to catch up on the plot, which unfortunately coincided with an knee injury which means I can't kneel or crouch. That means my back has been taking the strain, so I've had to change my approach slightly and compromise on digging here and there. Ho hum.

Cleared an existing raised bed and sowed spinach, lettuce and radishes under cover.

Cleared another existing raised bed and planted charlottes.

Weeded and raked over bed 2 and keyhole planted Lady C, charlotte and Axona potatoes.

Dug over bed 5 and planted charlottes and blue danube.

Convinced myself I'd remember which variety was planted where and promptly forgot. I do this every year. Covered all newly planted potatoes with either fleece or black plastic for now.

Dug about 1/4 of bed 4, which is known as the scrap bed, for all the nails and crud I still keep digging out of it.

Moved a compost dalek from bed 4 to bed 1, turning and mixing the uncomposted material and raking out the good stuff.

Planted out early peas and broad beans and constructed supports and nets etc.

Shifted a builder's bag over by the willow den and constructed a rough frame for it with canes, a plank, and interwoven sticks. Filled the bottom of it with manure and the rough stuff from the compost heap. I'll be growing pumpkins in this one.

Celebrated the arrival of the new manure heap and shifted a few tub loads into its holding pen.

Rescued a cafe au lait dahlia and replanted into one of the new raised beds.

Next jobs: weeding and mulching raspberries, shifting manure pile, digging bed 4 and planting out onions.

[Dynamo]

Just a couple of jobs done today. Firstly I planted about 50 Red Baron and a hundred Sturon onions and then covered them in a wood shavings and wood chippings mulch.



After that I potted on 45 Moneymaker tomatoes.

[Mark_Riga]

Went shopping at the Unicorn vegetarian shop in Manchester yesterday and saw (and bought) a bag of Alouette seed potatoes I had searched the internet to no avail. They will be planted in the next few days.

On Wednesday, planted early potatoes. The spot was where onions did very poorly last year so plenty of compost off the heap and hopefully will do OK. 2 spade fulls of compost with each potato. The area is a bit shaded though. The compost heap is just the 2 mounds shown.

[Gillykat]

Finally got my asparagus crowns planted in permanent bed (they were temporarily bedded down in compost in seed trays for past few days) and tucked them up with weed suppressant membrane until I can finish off sieving the soil to cover it up completely. They're covered up completely but just need another couple of inches to finish it off



Looks even MORE like a grave now

[Chestnut]

Put my spuds in and sowed a few rows of peas and carrots.
Then spent the afternoon in the GH sowing seeds from my ‘mid-late March’ tin. Frost forecast tomorrow morning, so all seedlings went back in GH overnight. Glad I didn’t sow any more, else I wouldn’t have had room to get everything indoors!

[Baldy]

charlottes planted - apple tree moved from garden to plot - bad time to do it but needs must, its got two choices now...

[Small pumpkin]

Shredded lots of stuff.
Bit of tidying.
Watered tunnels.
Started taking some cuttings.

[muck lover]

Layered six month old cow muck with leaves in a double size compost bin. I put an inch of old compost on top and planted with some lettuce and three potatoes. It’s mostly in shade but if I get anything at all from it this year I’ll be happy. Next year I’ll dig it out to mulch beds in late autumn.
Attempted to plant potatoes in a new bed and to my horror discovered a collection of huge breeze blocks eight inches deep. It was an awful job getting them out. The bed is now planted with a row of jazzy potatoes, and a row each of cauliflower and calabrese. Still plenty of space.
Moved my huge strawberry planter inside polytunnel. There are a few flowers on some of the container strawberries already in the tunnel ��.
And I played with my new ( to me) rotary composter. It’s not heating up much. I’m assuming it’s just too cool so far but I’ll keep trying.
I mulched with grass clippings over some marginal areas to keep weeds down.
Eating our way through a mountain of purple sprouting broccoli. Not a problem!

[muck lover]

Today I bought some onion sets - setton- from a Poundland.
I’ve put the best 10 into modules to see how they do and popped the rest into garden. Some of them were weeney so I’m not sure if they will come to much. Worst case scenario I’ll pull them up as scallions. For one pound it kept me out of trouble.
Also today I potted up some pepper and chilli seedlings.

[Dynamo]

Today I made 7 homemade beer slug traps using some out of date Dutch beer. If that doesn't kill the critters then nowt will.